A Review of 2009

Lots of pretty cool blogging stuff happened this year.

I left my old blog at WhiteCoat Rants and hooked up with EP Monthly. I have been repeatedly amazed at how EP Monthly helps me reach out to all of the emergency medical professionals in this country. Several times docs have come up to me with my column and asked me what I thought of it. “Meh. I don’t have time to read stuff like that” is my usual reply.

The Trial of a Whitecoat series was a huge success. The popularity of the posts kept me motivated to continue writing them. The comments everyone left were just amazing. I didn’t count up the total number of hits to all the posts, but the number of hits to the main link for the series alone was 52,172. One of my goals for the next 6 months is to add some of the other material I left out (like pictures, drawings, and side stories), add some of the comments left on the blog about the series, and turn the story into a book. Perhaps a movie. Oprah? You listening?

The next most popular post wasn’t a post, but was a page. I notice that when I’m busy and haven’t been able to post for a few days (which seems to be a pretty common occurrence lately), the page with all of the blog links (in the upper right corner of this blog) gets a spike in hits. If you have a medical blog and aren’t on the list, just drop a comment in the comments section. I’ll add you. That page got 21,797 hits last year.

Not much interesting here. Most searches were looking for me – involving some combination of “WhiteCoat” or “White Coat” and “Rants” or “Call Room.” I was surprised to find that the #1 spot in a Google search for “WhiteCoat” is … this blog. Wow. I also got a #4 position for the term “White Coat“.
When I wasn’t ticking other people off to the point that they were doing Google searches trying to find me, the other significant search terms included people looking for information about dyshidrotic eczema, lice, swine flu testing, John Edwards’ baby, and defensive medicine (#8 out of 660,000 on Google). I’ll have to post some more pictures of medical diseases this year to help people out.

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Top Readers

That would be all of you. It still amazes me that I have had almost 1.4 million page hits in the past 12 months. A soapbox doesn’t do much good if no one stands around to listen. Not only do you listen, but you add to the discussions and you set me straight when I get out of line. I’m fortunate to have such a good group of readers and appreciate everyone’s input to making this blog what it is. Without all of you, this blog would be like my little business blog that got a total of 424 hits for the year.

Hopefully I can continue living up to everyone’s expectations in 2010.

I’ll agree with Don on Nurse K being missed… loved her blog – have to say there are only 4 that I would read with regularity, this one, Nurse K’s, ERP’s and one written by an Infectious Disease doctor… definately have enjoyed all of them and do waste the first few minutes at work when I’m able checking them out when I come in.
That being said, Happy New Year everyone! May your next year be better than the one we just left!!